I really like the new cookbook room. It seems like it will be much more convenient than having to search through the kitchen and library for ideas on what to cook from all my books.

Anyway, I just picked up Party Vegan by Robin Robertson. I haven't cooked anything from it yet, but wanted to start a thread for it in case anyone has been more ambitious than me.

Based upon just reading the book, I'm happy with the purchase. The menus seem well thought out with a good balance of foods. The major drawback is the lack of photos. (Ideally, I would like to see Party Vegan and Vegan Table mate and produce and offspring with the gorgeous design of Vegan Table and the well planned menus of Party Vegan).

Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:23 pmPosts: 563Location: *the* state with the only votes that matter

I tested for this and will be doing a giveaway for it during MoFo with a review. The wrapped seitan roulades are on of my favorite recipes, perfect for holiday cooking and they can be refrigerated until baking. So good! There are loads of great recipes in there.

I bought this, flipped through it, and haven't made anything from it yet. I usually love Robertson's cookbooks but my instinct with this one is that I won't be using it that much for entertaining. The ingredients/recipes simply don't seem very meateater friendly, which is what I need in an entertaining cookbook: minimal tofu and if there's seitan it needs to be in innocuously small pieces, nothing too vegetable/bean oriented that will make their fragile carnivore systems too farty, things that are obviously identifiable as "main course" (I love en croute anything for this). Unfortunately the meateaters I know tend not to be very culinarily adventurous (that's why they're not vegan)! I'm sure the recipes in here are good but I just probably won't be making them for guests, which was kind of the point.

I made the Christmas menu out of this book for (suprise) Christmas. That menu is a seitan roast with porcini stuff, mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, salad, spinach and an apple tart.

The eaters were me, my husband and my parents. My parents are omnis. Everyone really enjoyed the dinner, although if I made this menu again, I would half the stuffing in the seitan roast -- to me, the stuffing to seitan ratio was too high.

I only took pictures of the apple tart (so pretty), which I will get around to adding to food porn at some point. Overall, I was pleased with my first effort from the book and will be trying more menus in the future.

I used this book tonight for the first time - it was an epic fail. My SO and I made the spicy/smoky bbq ribz - while the sauce was delicious (I would make the sauce again for anything that requires a good bbq sauce), all of the ribz ended up in the garbage, which was such a waste. They smelled awesome while cooking, but the texture was awful - a gelatinous, spongy mess. Has anyone else had better luck with this recipe?

I won this book on a blog giveaway during VeganMoFo, which I was really happy about. I do enjoy Robin's book. I haven't made anything yet, because I am addicted to following menu plans and I haven't had the time to properly put one into action, but I am looking forward to the day that I do!

I made several recipes from this book for a Christmas Eve party. They were all hits (with an all omni crowd). The recipes I made were the Spinach Walnut Phyllo Cigars, the Curried Pakora Puffs and the Chickpea Artichoke Bites with Aioli. I made all of them in advance and reheated them in the oven, which saved lots of time on party day. The Chickpea Bites were the favorite, but everything disappeared pretty quickly.

All were very good. The truffles come across as very fancy even though they're very easy to make. I made the other two for my Christmas party and my mom took the leftovers of both home because she liked them so much.

_________________"I feel like it's not a real political discussion if I'm not morally opposed to something I don't understand." - ndpittman

have you checked edward hamilton bookseller? hubby & I have been mail ordering from them for years, love them! i actually bought my PV from hamilton books! love them, brand new books, just overstocks, it's like a super giant version of the bargain book section at barnes & noble ;)

No - what I meant was, I didn't see the price, so I bought it in full price. so I don't want to risk cancelling (since naturally this is the first time amazon went straight into "Shipping Soon") and it doesn't cancel (or worse yet, it doesn't cancel and I lose the bargain price). it was seven dollars more. all it means is, I just don't get Vegan on the Cheap right away. that's my next purchase, i LOVED the seitan recipes in there. (hmm pepperoni).